SAEDAC seeks business boom

The high-tech focus of St. Albert business parks could be cast aside in favour of restaurants, warehouses and veterinary clinics under changes proposed by St. Albert’s economic development advisory committee (SAEDAC.)

The group, which advises council, released a list of recommendations this week outlining its preferred ways to increase the variety of businesses that can locate in areas designated as business parks.

Among the most significant of the proposed changes is to strike out a clause that restricts business parks to “offices, research and development institutions, and certain specialized light manufacturing establishments.”

This would finally put to rest the vision of North Campbell as a high-tech park, an idea that led to stagnant development, said SAEDAC chair Gilles Prefontaine.

Another change the committee seeks is to eliminate the designation business park transition (BPT) and roll its uses into the business park (BP) designation.

SAEDAC wants the BP designation to have two additional permitted uses: restaurants with no more than 50 seats, and construction service, which is now a discretionary use.

SAEDAC also seeks to add several discretionary uses:

• Restaurants with more than 50 seats

• Catering services

• Equipment rentals

• Veterinary clinics

• Animal service

• Household repair service

St. Albert went through the last boom without selling nearly as much land as other areas in the region so changes are needed to make the land more appealing, Prefontaine said.

Many of the businesses that are locating in North Campbell have had to ask council for a zoning change for their parcel, an onerous task that makes it tough to do business in St. Albert, he said.

“The recommendations bring us more aligned with business parks within the region,” he said.

St. Albert has two areas zoned as business parks: the vacant South Riel, near the Enjoy Centre, and Campbell North, which lies north of Servus Credit Union Place.

Other commercial areas that are commonly referred to as business parks, like Campbell and Riel, are actually designated as commercial industrial service (CIS), which contains fewer restrictions.

North Campbell developer Paul Wong approached council last fall seeking a reworking of the BP designation because he felt the land uses were too restrictive and hampering his land sales. He wanted something that was between BP and CIS.

SAEDAC’s recommendations are on the right track, Wong said. In particular, he likes that the committee is seeking to eliminate a limit to the amount of outdoor storage permitted and scrap a minimum office size requirement for warehouse-type operations.

“It allows some of the permitted uses to actually function,” he said. “Definitely it’s going to help our land sales.”

In three years of marketing land in North Campbell, Wong has sold just one parcel. But with word of impending changes in the air, he has three or four deals pending, he said.

Council accepted the recommendations as information so the next step is for Wong to consult landowners that would be affected by the changes. He expects to hold public consultation functions such as open houses in the next couple of months.

In coming up with the recommendations, the challenge for SAEDAC was to expand the land uses in a way that was tolerable to those landowners who bought into the original concept of a high-tech business park, said Coun. Cam MacKay, council’s member on SAEDAC.

“It’s not too dramatic but it really opens up the market,” he said. “This should definitely help in getting some other types of businesses there.”

The changes are relatively minor but should help a lot, agreed chamber of commerce chair Charlene Zoltenko.

“It’s a change that was needed and hopefully it does what it’s supposed to do,” she said.